1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to racket handle reducers, and more particularly, to a reducer that provides uniform removal of material from the handle in a plane parallel to the center line of the handle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Often the need arises to reduce the hand gripping size of tennis rackets and the like. Normally, racket handles such as used in tennis rackets are wound with a thin leather strapping that covers a wooden handle. If the handle grip is too small for the user, the leather strapping is removed and replaced with thicker strapping thereby building up the racket handle hand gripping size to accommodate the user's hand.
For the case where the handle is larger than required, a thinner strapping proves inadequate, and material must be removed from the handle.
In order to reduce the circumference of the handle, the handle strapping is unwound, material is removed from the handle, and the strapping is rewound about the handle. Techniques for removing such material from racket handles are known in the prior art. One class of device is a hand-held wood rasp which is used in conjunction with a racket handle gripping device. Typically, the racket handle is tightly secured in a vise, and successive passes are made over the exposed side of the handle with a wood rasp. At such time that the desired amount of material is removed from the handle, the handle is released from the vise, rotated so that an adjacent side is exposed, and the rasp is then drawn over the exposed surface until the desired amount of material is removed.
The technique just described suffers from several inherent problems. Firstly, since the rasp is hand-held, difficulty is encountered in applying uniform cutting pressure along each side of the handle. Thus, more material may be removed from one portion of the handle than from another. Since the depth of cut is uncontrollable, a non-uniform handle structure may result. Such non-uniform handle structures give rise to non-uniform gripping of the handle by the user as well as creating a weight imbalance in the handle. Handle imbalance, especially when such handles are used in tennis rackets, adversely affects the accuracy of play of the user.
Secondly, alignment of the cutting plane of the rasp with the center line of the handle is very difficult to maintain. The final shape of the handle, after completion of the material removal process, often times is slightly pyramidal rather than rectangular, such pyramidal shapes adversely affecting the control of the handle and accuracy of play with such handle.
Thirdly, use of a hand-held rasp requires much care, attention and time in the material removal process to ensure that the proper depth of cut, as well as its alignment with the racket handle center line, occurs. The material removal process therefore becomes very time consuming resulting in a substantial service cost to the ultimate consumer.
Other techniques such as the use of sanding machines and the like require a substantial investment on the part of the user, and therefore make it commercially unfeasible to undertake such handle-reducing services.
The apparatus of the present invention has particular advantages over presently-used methods in that exact determinable amounts of the material may be removed from the racket handle. Thus, the maintaining of handle-shape symmetry on a reduced scale is readily achievable.
Additionally, the apparatus provides for a more automated method of reducing racket handles, thereby increasing the speed of the overall material removal process and lessening the amount of skill required to perform such process.